A lot of business owners say “I need a logo” when what they really want is for their business to look professional and recognizable everywhere. A logo is one piece of that. Your brand is how everything looks and sounds together.
What a logo is
A logo is the mark that identifies your business: your name, a symbol, or both. It goes on your sign, your truck, your cards and your Instagram profile. A good one is simple, readable and works at any size.
What a brand includes
- Logo, in a few versions for different uses
- Colors, with exact codes so they match everywhere
- Fonts for headlines and regular text
- Photo style: bright and colorful, or clean and simple
- Voice: how you write and talk to customers, formal or casual, English, Spanish or both
When all of these match, customers start to recognize you before they even read your name.
Signs your branding is holding you back
- Your sign, cards, menu and Instagram all look like different businesses
- Your logo is unreadable when it’s small, like on a profile picture
- It only works in full color, so it falls apart on a one-color stamp, embroidery or a receipt
- You can’t read it from across the street
- It looks a lot like a competitor’s
- You don’t have the original files and have to send screenshots to the printer
What a small business actually needs
You don’t need a 60-page brand book. A solid starter kit is:
- A main logo, a simple version and a small icon
- Two or three colors with their codes
- One or two fonts
- A one- or two-page guide showing how to use them
- Files in the right formats: vector files for printers and sign shops, PNG and JPG for web and social media
Refresh or start over?
If people already know your logo and it mostly works, a refresh is usually the smart move: clean up the shapes, tighten the colors and make the rest consistent. Start over when the name has changed, when the current logo really can’t be fixed, or when you’re moving into a very different market.